


The Final Final Exam

by ScreechingPotatoFics



Series: Boku no Homestuck Academia [1]
Category: Homestuck, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Attempts at canon compliance, Multi, THEYVE ALREADY DIED TOO MANY FUCKING TIMES, The relationships aren’t really the focus, bnha au, except for the dying, gratuitous cursing, i don’t feel like crying over something I wrote, this is mostly focused on Roxy and Dave
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2019-07-02 12:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15796959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScreechingPotatoFics/pseuds/ScreechingPotatoFics
Summary: Sometimes, the system is against you. Other times, the people running the system make up shitty rules against your quirk so you can’t graduate high school. Or so that you can’t get a job. Or maybe, you just don’t get your quirk when you’re supposed to. Or all you can do is hear the whispers of the Old Ones.But if you’ve got some overly-heroic best friends... the story doesn’t just *end* there.(Mostly an examination of how the Strilondes’ behavior and God Tier powers could be used to create conflict in an extremely different setting. This mostly focuses on Roxy, though.)





	1. In Which Roxy Gets Angry and Her Friends Decide They Can Do Something About It

It’s her last chance. Her last chance to prove that she’s better than she was. She’s gone into counseling and even group therapy for her problems. She has her quirk under control, finally.

“Unfortunately, we can’t let you participate in this year’s Final Exam.” The bald doctor who calls himself “principal” smiles and folds his hands on the desk. “It’s just too much of a risk considering what happened last year.”

Roxy bites the inside of her cheek.

Okay, yeah. She was a bit of a mess last year but no one got hurt. At least, her teammates didn’t. And the people who *did* get hurt only had bruises! Nothing really *bad* happened.

“I took as many extra classes as possible and I even got counseling for my problems, Dr. Scratch.” She tried keeping her tone as even as possible.

However, the principal’s smile just spread into a wide grin.

“It’s against the code of conduct to allow students with criminal records to participate in broadcasted events. I cannot do a single thing.”

Roxy can do nothing but shake her head and leave the office.

“Thank you for this gigantic waste of time.”

It takes a good amount of tongue biting to keep herself from going on a tirade about how unfair it was. How ridiculous it was that Meenah Peixes and Cronus Ampora are able to wreak destructive mayhem every-fucking-where while people who didn’t have connections to that Condescending Bitch got to take the fall.

“Roxy!” Jane rose from her chair, looking every bit the heiress she was meant to. “How did everything...”

She trailed off, watching Roxy’s jaw clench.

“Just fuckin’ fine, Janey. Just like someone took all of your hopes an’ fuckin’ dreams, crumpled ‘em into a heap and threw ‘em into an overflowin’ garbage can that just happened to be on fire.”

She relayed the information to her friend who gasped with a hand at her chest. If she wasn’t so damn mad, she’d be laughing at how much Jane reminded her of an old lady.

It takes a few moments for Jane to reply as they make their way back to the lunch room. 

“There’s a possibility that we could scour the code of conduct for a loophole. We’re going to be heroes, if I have anything to do with it!”

Roxy linked arms with Jane and leaned sideways to rest her head on her friend’s.

“Thanks, Janey.”

Back at the lunch table, at least three people were screaming and someone (read: John Egbert-Crocker) attempted a prank that failed horribly, resulting in the eardrum-shattering screamfest.

“How did it go?” Rose somehow managed to make herself heard over the noise despite not speaking above her usually quiet tone.

“Have you ever seen someone in one of those shitty obstacle-course game shows where the other fucks who aren’t running the course get to make random shit happen? Like ya dude Elliot or Jason or Fuckface runs his shit. Everything’s fine, but he stumbles a tiny bit on that log thing and BAM! Someone hurled a pineapple right in his face, knockin’ him out instantly.”

Karkat writhed out of Dave’s grasp, slamming one hand on the table and pointing at John.

“I AM GOING TO KILL YOU AND ALL OF YOUR MISERABLE FUCKING DESCENDANTS. YOUR INSUFFERABLE PROGENY WILL DIE LONELY, DRAWN-OUT, PAINFUL DEATHS BY SOME MEANS OF UNIMAGINABLE TORTURE, YOU CROTCHSTAINED BARFPUPPET.”

“Karkat, relax! It was only a prank!”

Roxy shrugged. “But I’m gonna try to fix that.”

Rose barely seemed bothered by this. “If you’re planning on a game-breaking maneuver that could very well usurp the system of education, you could count me in.”

Roxy looked at her for a moment as she sat back down at the table.

“Why is your boyfriend like this?” Dirk asked Dave.

Before Dave could respond, Karkat answered for him.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, STRIDER TWO! THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU OR YOUR MISERABLE ORIENTAL BLADES OR ANIMATED EQUESTRIANS.”

“Nah, Rosie. We gonna take the high road and exploit as many shit rules as possible until Chrome Dome lets me back into the competition,” Roxy said, stealing a French fry off of Dirk’s tray.

“I believe that blackmail could also be a viable means as to getting you an internship.”

Roxy smacked Dave’s apple juice on the table. “Davey, get your sister to stop doing crime.”

“Stop doing crime, Rose,” he said, no longer making any attempt to secure the gremlin known as Karkat Vantas.

“No,” she replied, taking a sip from her thermos. 

“I tried,” Dave said, not making any attempt to try harder than that.

Roxy bursted out laughing at her half-siblings’ monotonous voices.

**

Dirk lay on the living room floor with a tablet in hand.

“How the fuck is there a clause for an alien death ray killing half the students at school? That doesn’t even happen in popular media anymore.”

Jake, sitting upside down on the couch, looked down at him through goggles imbedded in his helmet.

“I’ve got no idea, but there’s a gigantic section about using quirks off of school grounds,” he said, his goggles starting to flash as he quickly scrolled through the rules. “‘Under no circumstances can a student, living or partially deceased, use their quirk in any shape or form even in cases of alien invasion, self-defense, or defense of others.’”

“That’s a shit rule,” Roxy responded, typing madly into the computer on her lap.

Jane squinted as she attempted to use her Tiara Top. “I don’t think a student could be partially— dammit!”

“Everything okay?” Dirk said, not looking up from his phone.

“Just another damn pop-up advertisement. I swear I’m going to maliciously...” She paused, taking off both her Tiara Top and glasses to rub her eyes. “I honestly don’t know what else to say. The inventor of pop-up ads is evil and I need to find a way to throttle him to death.”

Roxy typed more rapidly, staring intently at her screen.

Jake took his helmet off for a moment. “Is she usually like this when she’s hacking?”

“She usually stays in her room, so hell if I know,” Dirk said, shrugging.

Jane stood up and stretched, spine popping as she did so. “I’m going to get some water; would anyone like anything?”

Dirk sat up and shoved his phone into his pocket. “I’ll go with you. Mom Lalonde went on a cleaning rampage last week. We almost had to keep Rose from writing a sarcastic thank-you note.”

They leave the room, somehow managing not to run directly into the ridiculous amount of wizard statues scattered around.

The room was silent except for Roxy’s keyboard.

“Hey, Rox?” Jake righted himself, sitting on the couch correctly.

She didn’t look up from her screen. “Yeah?”

Jake put his glasses back on and knelt behind her, staring at her screen. Rows of text scrolled up her screen faster than he could read. In all honesty, he couldn’t even tell what she’s doing. 

“What are you going to do after the exam?” 

She didn’t reply, still typing and scrolling.

He knew what he was going to do: get hero recognition from the state and go after the villain who killed his grandmother. Maybe he’d even get help from Jade— after she graduates, of course— to set up his own hero agency. Either way, he knew it wasgoing to be a long time before he can get the credentials.

“Roxy?”

She shut her laptop and cracked her fingers. “I heard ya the first time.”

Jane was set to inherit a gigantic corporation involving baking goods if her “cousins” chose not to take the throne. Even if she failed at support, she still had a backup. 

Dirk was an amazing engineer despite having such a villainous quirk. Regardless of whether he was allowed to become a hero himself, he’d still have a place working for heroes as support. But it’s not like he was ready to just decide on a career after the SBURBAN GAME FAIR last year. That hacked up his chances of doing anything under his legal name and fed it to an octopus creature that needed to feed its hatchlings.

Roxy could decide to take her hacking up a notch and work for security for different agencies, but it was a hobby. If she had to do it for a living, she’d get bored of it. Then all she could do is write fan fiction about wizards and that doesn’t have an appeal unless she can look up references on her computer without being reminded of work.

“So what do you think you’ll do? As a job, I mean.”

She stared at the base of a wizard statue in the corner. It was lovingly engraved with runes she learned at the age of eight. Rose admonished her for it, despite being six at the time.

“I don’t know.” She shrugged as he sat beside her. “All I ever wanted to do was have fun and help people while doing it.”

“You can still do that, Roxy.”

She knew that he was going to start on a list of careers Jade had made him look at when he was having doubts about being a hero, so she continued.

“I can’t be a teacher because I have a history of shit impulse control and...” She paused for a moment. “I could single-handedly wreck the entire country’s economy if I wanted to. I could fix the state’s infrastructure just by blackmailin’ a few shitty politicians with pockets deeper than the diameter of planet fuckin’ Jupiter, man.”

Jake stifled a laugh, overbite as prominent as ever.

“The way you say that almost makes it look like we could be villains...”

He looked her in the eye as Jane and Dirk came back. Roxy said nothing.

“Then how in the world is your brother getting that apple juice?!” Jane exclaimed.

Dirk shrugged, adjusting his sunglasses. “He’s still banned from the Chinese grocery up the street, but if I had an idea—“

“You can’t be serious!” Jake stood up, more serious than he’s been at any other time not related to his dead grandmother.

“Dude, I’m not, but I’m not yankin’ your chain either.” Roxy rolled her eyes and opened her laptop again.

“Excuse me?” Jane raised an eyebrow at the shouting Brit.

Roxy put her hands out in a surrendering gesture. “All I said was that I could be a great villain if I wanted to be.”

Dirk tilted his head, seemingly weighing the odds.

“Roxy Lalonde, we are going to get you back into the final exam even if it takes all night! And we are going to do it like law-abiding citizens!” Jane crossed her arms. “I don’t know who put those thoughts into your head, but I will wring their neck if it means you get to have a chance at improving your future, missy.”

Jane indignantly placed a peach-flavored soda next to Roxy.

“She’s still right though,” Dirk said. He sat on the couch with his own orange soda.

Jake’s phone blared half a second of a song about vegetables. 

“Mr. Harley wants me to come home. I guess I’ll see you all at school tomorrow.”

He quickly packed his belongings and left the room.

Jane still didn’t want to let it go. “Sure! Let’s all get arrested for conspiracy! If there are rules we can play be to succeed, we should adhere to them as much as possible.”

Dirk sighs. “You heal, Jane, and your little bro does that windy thing. I rip people’s souls out of their bodies, Rose communes with dark gods, and Roxy can just... make whatever the hell she wants as long as she thinks about it hard enough.”

“And?” Jane nearly threw the bottle of water to the other side of the kitchen. “You can temporarily imprison dangerous people so they can’t hurt another living thing! Rose uses her power to find a bright future for all of us! Roxy can create wonderful things—and sometimes generic objects—but she can still use it to help people.”

Roxy shut her laptop again and tucked it under her arm. “You forgot Dave.”

Jane’s eyebrows furrowed. “He’s quirkless.”

“While you argue about nothing, I’m gonna figure out how I can get back into heroing. Feel free to leave, Janey.” Roxy went up the stairs, not turning back to say goodbye.

The two in the living room stayed silent for a moment. 

“I know what my quirk is. And I can tell you for a fact that both you and John can do terrible things with your quirks.”

Jane opened her mouth to speak, but shut it immediately after Dirk finished his sip of soda.

“It’s a matter of what you believe is right and what you think you’re supposed to do with it. But if people are afraid of what you can do and society is still fucked up about it, you spend a lot of time wondering whether it would be worth it.”

Jane shrugged and gathered her things, leaving silently.

Dirk sits in the empty living room, soon getting up to put his step-sister’s untouched soda back in the fridge. Without turning around, he shuts the refrigerator door.

“How much did you hear?”

Dave shrugs, chucking an empty bottle of apple juice into the recycling bin.

“Y’all are pretty loud.”

Dirk sighs. “Do you have the newest version of the code of conduct?”

“Maybe. Is it for Roxy?”

“Who else would it be for?”,


	2. In Which Dave Attempts to Assimilate into the Family He Should Have Been With From the Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided to figure out a better way to format this fic. Please give me feedback because formatting tends to drive me up the wall.

You’d think that after a ridiculous hushed argument that his siblings and their friends had, Dave would probably take a side. Maybe he believes that even a quirk like creating shit has true potential in doing some justice-worthy bullshit. Or maybe the creating shit part is good for something else. 

The thing is, he didn’t hear the whole argument and had only a brief understanding of what was happening. Roxy was not allowed to participate in the Most Overrated Fake Field Day due to some shit that Rose used to complain about on a near daily basis. Then she got through counseling and joined a support group, which helped her immensely. And then there was something about villains and probably uncharacteristic apathy...

The most that young David Strider could do was dig up the hard copy print of the school’s code of conduct so his brother and sister could look for clues. He set off on a journey to his backpack (which was possibly the most beat up, paper filled backpack a human person could lay their eyes on). 

His subsequent descent from his room with a (somehow completely intact) code of conduct was surprising to say the least. Somehow, the last time he was to do something like that, he got distracted by something and started doing whatever that was instead. Not that he could remember what that instance entailed, anyways.

A hint of a hint of a smirk was on Dirk’s face when he received the cheap waste of paper. Like when you see someone cover their mouth with their hand as they receive some sort of news and you hear a dry chuckle come from the other side of the highway.

Wait a second.

How the hell would anyone be able to hear a dry chuckle across a goddamn highway?

“Thanks.”

Obliged to continue the absolute Broness of the encounter, Dave responded with what he hoped to be a satisfactory Verified Dude Nod.

Dirk left him with actual human feeling flooding back all too quickly.

It’s 5:53 on a goddamn Tuesday and this wreck of a teenager forgot that he had homework. Specifically, homework that involved reading multiple chapters on subjects that don’t really relate to him in the long run (he remembered that Andrew Carnegie sold J. P. Morgan his steel company for $480 million, but not really why Carnegie sold it or why J. P. Morgan wanted to get his robber baron hands on it).

He rushed to his room, suppressing the urge to see what would happen if he tried to go back in time just a little bit further. 

Yes, it would probably be rad, but at what cost? If he threw up before, would he lose his entire stomach next time? Or would he just cease existing entirely? Is it ethical to try to force his body to go far enough back in time that he could retake a test he failed the retake of? If he tried to go forward in time, would his eyes bleed? Or would he fade to dust like those characters in that one video game he heard about but never bothered playing?

He buckled down and did his homework on the floor like some kind of deskless heathen, despite having a very nice desk from a respectable furniture retailer that was gifted to him almost immediately after Mom (Jesus Christ, that’s an awkward word) saw his birth certificate. 

An hour and a half later, when he was finally beginning to write his essay on the author’s purpose of some bullshit article, a stately knock sounded at his door.

“Yeah?” 

A head poked into his room.

“You’re going to eat dinner with us,” Rose said, apparently not caring that she just opened his door.

He gave an overly exasperated sigh. After all, he could have been doing his homework naked. Again. At least she knocked this time.

Her playful expression was mirrored by his.

“Is that a threat, Lalonde?”

She placed a hand on her cheek, pretending to be shocked.

“Me? Threatening a perfectly capable young man who once got buried under a mountain of plush puppet ass? How utterly abhorrent.”

He exhaled as closely to a laugh as he dared.

“I kinda just wanna finish this up. I’ll be down in like five minutes.”

She raised her eyebrows, but didn’t press further, leaving as if she’d never been there in the first place.

Seconds later, he heard someone shouting from the bottom of the stairs. 

“I’m gonna give you so many vegetables, little bro!”

Allowing his Inner Dave to ask “What the fuck?” just once and extremely quietly, he quickly dumped his binders onto his paper-cluttered floor. He practically launched himself down the stairs, the momentum carrying him directly into the front door.

He didn’t notice the pain until he rolled his shoulder to check for injuries.

A little pinprick of pain bloomed into a warmth he knew all too well. More pain. Except less because he had a tiny bit more flesh on his shoulder now. 

“Hey, quit staring at the door. It’s time to eat,” Dirk said from the kitchen.

It was odd to see food that wasn’t from a fast food chain on a counter surrounded by unsupervised adolescents. The food was definitely not beautiful and plastic like advertisements, but it still happened to be better than some weird gravy-covered abomination like what he found in the fridge last week.

For the past few days, Dave had been sustaining himself with stale bags of Doritos. His heart pounded in his chest as he tried not to think of all the ways he could possibly fuck up. But the sweat continued collecting on his brow. The shades on his face helped mask the extreme awkward anxiousness he felt, but not by much. The rest of his face was out in the world for all to see.

Roxy laughed, wearing a ridiculously frilly pink apron that would have undoubtedly caught fire had she used the stove in that exact moment.

“Take a look at me, doin’ this mom thing.”

Rose glanced away, barely suppressing a grin at her sister’s shenanigans.

“You’re doing quite well for someone who didn’t know what a knife sharpener was.”

Roxy put her hands on her hips.

“Rosie, that’s no way to talk to your mom. Go to your room.”

Rose shook her head as she took another ladle full of broth.

Dave watched them carefully. His chest felt strange at the prospect of being their brother. A part of a family. Not just a little boy covered in bruises, gaslit enough that if someone told him the sky was green, he’d think that he was just colorblind. He’d be part of a majority. Someone who could be powerful enough to save hundreds of lives.

He pulled up a stool next to Dirk, who seemed to pay him no mind as he watched Roxy pretend to be a housewife. A couple ladle-fulls of soup and he could almost identify it.

“Chicken noodle soup?”

“Chicken corn,” Dirk responded, already getting up to wash his dishes. 

“Oh.”

Dave’s brain started screeching at him like Karkat used to when they first met. Except this time, it was Inner Dave and Inner Dave has a lot more to say than Outer Dave wants him to. Not that Inner Dave actually gets past Outer Dave’s filter most of the time. Inner Dave wants to be Bros with Dirk, but Outer Dave has no idea how to accomplish that.

Not to mention the fact that Dirk looks so much like Bro—no, Dad— did. One part of Inner Dave was waiting for Outer Dave to fuck up so he wouldn’t have to deal with seeing an almost complete replica of the man who raised him for almost fifteen years.

After burning his mouth on the first couple spoonfuls of soup, he found himself slowing down his soup intake. But that didn’t keep him from downing three bowls in rapid succession. Or in as rapid a succession as he could while still maintaining his Cool Guy façade.

Roxy seemed to almost glow with pride in the event of her hard-won victory as Dave began to wash his bowl. 

“We should eat together more often,” Rose said, gently placing the lid back on the pot of soup.

“Sounds good to me. Do you wanna cook next time though?”

Rose considers her sister’s words for a moment before responding.

“If I can find a suitable recipe for nine people that can quell Dave’s appetite.”

A tiny smile pulled at the corner of Dave’s mouth. “Like I’m not the only one who eats like a horse.”

When Inner Dave finally shut up about his inadequacy, he was able to finish his homework in his room. The ridiculous review was complete, albeit very, very inaccurately. But that gave him an hour and a half until he had to really go to sleep, so he got ready for bed early and just laid there, playing scenarios of his happy new life out like a movie inside of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I forget about this fic? Kind of. Will it continue to update sporadically until the fall of 2020? Probably.


	3. In Which Roxy Visits Her True Love and Starts Some More Conspiracies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FUCK THE EPILOGUES, I’M A FIC WRITER.

“You’re back,” Calliope wheezed. An almost manic smile spread across her face when she saw Roxy. “I missed you, love.”

Roxy always hated the smell of hospitals and their bare white rooms, but she fought her nausea every step of the way just to see her. A beautiful girl slowly dying of her shared quirk, bones jutting out of her skin like she was a skeleton covered with plastic wrap. A greenish, barely lucid girl who loved her. A girl that Roxy would trade her life for.

“I missed you too, Callie,” she said, taking a frail hand in hers. “The doctors treatin’ you okay?”

The sickly girl’s laugh soon turned into a cough.

“I’m surviving,” she rasped. “How’s everyone?”

Just being this close to someone she loved made Roxy’s chest hurt. It’s not like saying that she could be a better villain than a hero would ruin her friendships forever, but most of Jake’s family was killed by a villain. Jane’s mom, too.

“Fine. Just stressed about the Fair.”

Callie kissed her hand.

“They won’t let you join, will they?” she said softly.

Roxy swallowed hard. “Not yet. But I’m gonna try. For Dave and Rose. And to get the bastard who did this to you.”

Defeat dulled her girlfriend’s eyes.

“You don’t need to do anything. Just keep everyone together and happy when I’m gone. That’s all I want, Roxy.”

Roxy briefly let go of Calliope’s hand to drag a chair to her bedside. The loud scraping of wood against linoleum almost made her wince. Not even a second later, Roxy was gripping onto her girlfriend’s hand again like a lifeline.

“You’re not going to die,” she said, mostly for her own sake. “One day, you’ll get better and we’ll get a house together and raise like ninety cats together.”

Calliope shook her head, sighing deeply. “In a different life, yes. But more is weighing on your shoulders than the wishes of a dying nobody. Something happened with you and Jane, didn’t it?”

Roxy opened her mouth to protest, but couldn’t bring herself to lie. The words that came out were stilted and nearly staccato.

“Jake just... blew some stuff out of proportion and Jane flipped out.”

Calliope raised an eyebrow. Or what would have been an eyebrow, if she had hair.

“It’s not a big deal, I promise.”

“If it made them both that upset, then they were upset for good reason.”

Roxy didn’t want to believe she’d been in the wrong, but what she knows about Jake’s grandma, not to mention Jane’s mom.... She probably shouldn’t have put herself in the same position as their killers. Even if some vigilantes do good and get labeled villains anyway.

“So you want me to make up with them?”

“You made a promise, love. If you don’t keep it... let’s just say I’ll haunt you for all of your days,” Calliope responded, a smile playing at her pale lips.

A short exhale—almost a laugh—escaped Roxy.

“I guess a deal’s a deal, then.”

They sat in silence for a little while, the chemical smell seeming to increase in pungency the longer Roxy sat next to her girlfriend. She could feel the room sucking the moisture from her body. A headache developed in her temples.

She stood and said her farewells only to be stopped by a weak squeeze on her hand.

“Tell me when you make up.” Calliope rolled her eyes. “They’ve taken my computer again.”

~

Roxy couldn’t drive home even if she wanted to. She gave up her license privileges a long time ago as a preventative measure. It worked and she was almost cured by the six months of lockdown.

The bus stank vaguely of old piss and cheap perfume sprayed on a little too thick. Everything was either a shade of dark blue or silvery steel, except for some of the gum on the floor and the clothing on the people.

Of course, very few people on the bus had inhuman features. The lack of radiation in their area might have had something to do with it, but scientists were finding new information about quirks every day. It was just another part of life, like skin color or nationality.

Roxy didn’t look out the window like she did on her way to the hospital. Instead, she found herself staring at a dried wad of gum on the back of the seat in front of her. 

How would she apologize? She could just explain something about feeling hopeless and say that she didn’t mean it. But she did. It would be so easy for her to ruin the economy or even put her hacking skills to the test and see if she could hack the Pentagon again. Maybe she would be able to get the fucker to give back Callie’s life.

She exhaled a silent sigh.

The pros had it handled. The police were looking for him. But when were they going to put him away? Months after Callie finally died? Years? The alternative made her stomach coil in knots. 

Every pro got themself a nemesis within the first five years of heroing, but Roxy would be ahead of the curve. Only seventeen —not even eighteen yet— and she had her sights set on her girlfriend’s killer-to-be. If she can even get scouted by a hero agency.

She was so deep in thought that she almost didn’t hear the man next to her.

“Is this seat taken?” he asked, towering over her. His voice was deep and raspy, as if he’d spent hours screaming.

Roxy glanced up at him for a moment to shake her head. In that short second, she realized that the other seats had all been taken.

She looked back down at the floor, processing what she’d just seen. 

The stranger looked scruffy like he hadn’t shaved in days and wore a gray hoodie that looked like it had cigarette burns in it. The only weird thing about him was his smell. She expected cigarette smoke, but got woodsmoke and the metallic tang of... blood.

Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t her problem or her business. Right now her problems involved that goddamn Suburban Game Fair and the friends she needs to help her. She’s helped Jane with romance advice (that Jane had never followed through on) and helped Jake with his homework. Right now, she really needs them to help.

Dirk is a great stepbrother, but she needs a bit more than someone who already gave up on his dreams. There’s more of a chance that she’ll get dragged down with him. He needs her help a little more than she needs his.

“Are you feeling alright, miss?” 

The man next to her startled her once again, deep red eyes seeming tired as they met hers.

“Just teen angst, y’know. Not much to worry about there.”

He nodded and put a hand to his chin as though he was thinking about something else. 

“A lot of kids these days are too worried about the future. You’ll get there someday, with or without the people you think you need.” The bus stopped and the stranger got up slowly. “Good luck with your angst.”

Her eyebrows knitted together, a short “Thanks.” coming out automatically.

Twenty-seven seconds after the bus had started moving again, Roxy realized that he looked a lot like Dave’s boyfriend. Three seconds after that, she remembered that Karkat was adopted. Another ten seconds and she was more than a little convinced that Karkat’s biological dad was that dead vigilante from twenty years ago.

She was a little more than confused by that encounter, but she still had two things on her mind: one, getting her friends back and two, finding that goddamn loophole.


End file.
